Botanics

Edinburgh's Royal Botanic Gardens was one of my mother's favorite places.   My grandparents lived in Inverleith Place right by its back gate and as a student I too loved visiting it.

I was there this evening at a reception for the Director of the Botanical Survey of India with whom the Asia Scottish Trust is seeking to collaborate on the restoration of the Roxburgh Building in Calcutta's Botanic Gardens.

The room in which the reception was held was the very room in which Roxburgh, the "father of Indian botany" was taught by Professor Hope, the founder of the Edinburgh Garden.  

Remarkable enough, but even more remarkable is the fact that the building containing  the room originally sat on Leith Walk in Edinburgh which was the second site for the Edinburgh Gardens (the first was where Waverly Station now stands).  

It was derelict and about to be demolished when the conservation architect James Simpson (who took me to the Calcutta Scottish Cemetery, which I blipped some years ago) working with others arranged to have it taken down and then re-erected at the current Botanics.  

It was wonderful to see , and be in, and my extra picture shows one of the information boards in the community and teaching room in the building.